The Road to IF and a Bigger Faith

I just wanted to say thank you. It's been quite a month with Restless and IF:Gathering launching and as you can imagine when you do anything important resistance is sure to come. And it has in various forms- but just as I get discouraged one of you will post something or tell me you are praying for us and it pulls us back. You are in so many ways fellow kindred runners. I barely go a few hours without talking to one of our leadership team. We have become the dearest of friends not the kind built over coffee and giggles (although there has been a lot of that. Lots of that.) But this is more the type of sisterhood forged over tears and fear and faith and hopes that seem too big to be real. We all held barely a mustard seed of faith… and now it's growing into more of a force. Because behind all of the pretty things we have seen God move. We are braver and bolder because of him.

Your stories have joined ours and we are in this together for God's glory in our time.

I remember writing these words- now two years ago. IF didn't have a name yet- it was just a hint of something. I knew God was stirring and yet I couldn't quite tell what it would be. I just knew I was afraid and I wanted more and I was learning that I wasn't alone.

DECEMBER 5, 2011

Where are the next generation of women leaders?

We are passionately dreaming behind closed doors. But we are all terrified to stand up and lead. We are afraid of being hated and equally afraid of being liked and followed and we are trying to stay in love with Jesus enough to do it anyway. There are a few jumping up and down trying to get everyone’s attention, but most of us are sitting, dreading raising our hand because we’re scared what it means.

Where is the next Beth Moore or Kay Arthur?

With all the respect we have for these women, our mentors, it's impossible to fill shoes like these. It seems there is a road in the wilderness but it is difficult to find.

We want something. It isn't fame or platforms. We want a revolution and most of us wish someone else would start it.

We’re embarrassingly cynical and shoot leaders down for sport- so we’re all afraid to lead. But we need to be led.

I’m asking you to hold your fire.

Let some of us stand up and try. The stirrings of a revolution are in the works.... I am in the meetings and hear the whispers. God is gathering a force and change is coming and it comes from Him. But help our fears... we are afraid to lead. Because honestly we are afraid we will stand up and be wrong or even right but either way we are going to get stoned.

It’s going to be different... it won’t be a tweaked version of old dreams. These are new and scary and uncomfortable dreams but they are from God. He builds things like this... people don’t.

Together, if we all keep our heads down and follow our Jesus, something is going to happen. A generation of women who have quietly been reading and longing and dreaming and falling in love with God are about to wake up. We are about to let God run wild through us.... together.

I feel it. We live once and then we meet God. We want to live lives that matter for eternal things. We want to be a generation who followed with reckless abandonment a God who was real to us.

But we need each other.

Hold your fire and we will try to be brave.

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Friends- it has happened- we are coming together. I see a generation rising... We have stepped up for God's glory and the good of others and you have too. And I believe in full faith that He will move among us in new ways. Ways that expand our faith and courage even more. Keep praying. I can't wait to do this together in days.

God is real and we can't wait to see what He will do through his children together- wild and full of faith.

What are you praying for IF:Gathering and for yourself and for our world?